BC Climate News March 14-20: Movie stars call on RBC to stop funding Coastal GasLink pipeline | Federal Ministers Say National Flood Insurance Program Needed | Earlier allergy season linked to climate change
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Here’s your weekly update with what you need to know about global climate change and the steps BC is taking to address the climate and ecological crises for the week of March 14 to March 20, 2022.
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This week in the climate news:
- Hollywood stars call on Royal Bank to stop funding Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern British Columbia
- Earlier allergy seasons linked to climate change
- Malagasy people are going through a long drought
the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned for years that wildfires, drought, severe weather, like the deadly British Columbia heat dome in June, and flooding would become more frequent and intense due to the climate crisis.
Last August it published a “red code” for humanity and two weeks ago the panel, made up of hundreds of scientists from around the world, declared that the window to prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5 °C was closing.
Check back here every Saturday for a roundup of the latest climate and environmental stories. You can also get up-to-date information about British Columbia delivered to your inbox before 7am by subscribing to our newsletter here.
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Quick facts on climate change:
- Earth is now about 1.1C warmer than it was in the 1800s.
- Globally, 2021 was the fifth hottest year on record.
- Human activities have increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2 nearly 49% above pre-industrial levels from 1850.
- The world is not on track to meet the Paris Agreement goal of preventing global temperature from rising above 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the upper limit for avoiding the worst fallout from the climate change.
- 2015-2019 was the five hottest years on record, while 2010-2019 was the hottest decade on record.
- On the current trajectory of carbon dioxide emissions, the temperature could increase by up to 4.4°C by the end of the century.
- In 2019, greenhouse gas concentrations reached new heights. Carbon dioxide levels were 148% of pre-industrial levels.
- Emissions must fall by 7.6% per year from 2020 to 2030 to keep temperatures from exceeding 1.5°C and by 2.7% per year to stay below 2°C.
- 97% of climatologists agree that the climate is warming and that human beings are the cause.
(Source: UN IPCC, World Meteorological Organization,UNEP, NASA, climatedata.ca)
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LATEST CLIMATE NEWS
Hollywood stars call on Royal Bank to stop funding Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern British Columbia
Actor Mark Ruffalo leads a constellation of Hollywood stars calling on Royal Bank of Canada to divest itself of the Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern British Columbia
Ruffalo and more than six dozen actors, musicians and others in the entertainment industry have signed an open letter to RBC urging them to drop their financial support for the project, which they say infringes the rights of the Wet’suwet’en people.
He said hereditary chiefs have been ignored, while societies deal exclusively with elected Wet’suwet’en leaders “put in place by the colonial government, not the rightful title holders.”
A petition to the bank asks it to “stop funding fossil fuel expansion…RBC must end funding for extreme fossil fuel expansion projects, especially fracking and the tar sands.”
Among the signatories of No More Dirty Banks are Scarlett Johansson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., Jane Fonda, Taika Waititi and Mariska Hargitay.
Read the full story here.
—Joseph Ruttle
Earlier allergy season in Metro Vancouver linked to climate change
It’s not your imagination: the itchy eyes, congested chest and itchy noses that lead to violent sneezing do indeed come earlier in the season, and last longer.
Evidence, experts say, suggests it is linked to climate change.
It’s being felt in British Columbia, across the country and around the world, said Cecilia Sierra-Heredia, an SFU lecturer whose research focuses on the link between climate and allergies.
“It’s very consistent with signals we’ve received from previous years and it’s directly linked to warming temperatures due to climate change,” Sierra-Heredia said.
So add earlier and longer allergy seasons to heat domes, atmospheric rivers, wildfires, landslides and floods as the things humans have made worse.
Read the full story here.
— Gord McIntyre
Federal ministers say a national flood insurance program is needed
Federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for emergency preparedness are working to launch a new national flood insurance program to protect homeowners in high-risk flood zones.
A task force made up of government leaders and representatives from the Insurance Bureau of Canada is expected to release a final report on the program later this spring after two years of work.
At a regular meeting between ministers on Thursday, the main focus was on mitigating climate change after a year of heat waves, wildfires and floods across the country.
British Columbia was particularly hard hit in 2021. The provincial coroner’s service said 595 people died during a prolonged heat dome last summer. At least 15,000 people were displaced during record flooding in November, and the two events combined are estimated to have killed 1.3 million farm animals.
Read the full story here.
—The Canadian Press
A Yemeni town looks to an ancient past to survive climate change
For thousands of years, a network of aqueducts and basins has helped the port city of Aden in Yemen cope with floods and drought. Today, plastic bags, cans of drinks and makeshift shacks clog the old canals.
But as global warming fuels extreme weather in the climate-vulnerable country, city officials say restoring Tawila’s cisterns to their former glory could help secure water supplies during times of drought and avoid flooding during the rainy season.
“I know the history of my town, and I want to bring that history to the present,” said Gelal Haykal, a 28-year-old local council member in the Crater floodplains, named after their location in a sleeper. volcano.
Since the 15th century BC. The cisterns of Tawila channeled rainwater through a series of sluices, filling half a dozen reservoirs before flowing into the sea, according to UN-Habitat, the United Nations program for colonies.
The channels, made of volcanic ash waterproofed with stucco, zigzagged between the steep ranges of volcanic rock, diverting rainwater from the lower and oldest parts of Aden and saving residents from flooding.
—Reuters
A green island turns red: Malagasy people fight a long drought
With a few precious trees to slow the wind in this once fertile corner of southern Madagascar, red sand blows everywhere: over fields, villages and roads, and into the eyes of children waiting for food aid parcels.
Four years of drought, the worst in decades, along with deforestation caused by people burning or cutting down trees to make charcoal or to open up land for agriculture, have turned the region into a bowl of dust.
“There is nothing to harvest. This is why we have nothing to eat and we are starving,” said Tarira, a mother of seven, standing in a remote World Food Program (WFP) post near Anjeky Beanatara, where children are being checked. to detect signs of malnutrition and receive food.
More than a million people in southern Madagascar are currently in need of food from WFP, a United Nations agency.
—Reuters